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magoo5289
Contributor
Contributor

MS Datacenter Edition and Licensing

From everything I've read on a high volume guest OS host, Datacenter edition will bring down your operational costs significantly. The question I have is how do you register the processors on the ESX host with the Datacenter Edition software? Those processors are gistered with ESX right? Or does just having the datacenter guest on the host do the trick?

Would you also need to implement KMS to pull this off properly?

Thanks to any responders.

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wardgtr
Contributor
Contributor

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magoo5289
Contributor
Contributor

It looks like the link may not have made it to the post. but thanks! lol

Now it's there. disregard the above. Thanks again!

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wardgtr
Contributor
Contributor

Here is another thread on this topic.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/93094

Bryan
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msemon1
Expert
Expert

The datacenter Edition is a good option if you are averaging at least 8VM's per server. If running less look into Enterprise licenses. Take a look at this Virtual machine licensing calculator.

http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-calculators.aspx

Mike

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magoo5289
Contributor
Contributor

My question is more along the technical side than the cost side. How do you license a ESX physcial processor's for use by a datacenter edition VM. Or does it work on the honor system like many of MS's enterprise level (VL) software? Or is his where KMS would come into play?

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wardgtr
Contributor
Contributor

You would get a Volume License Key to use for all the guest OS. I have attached the MS word document on licensing. This should help you.

Bryan
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magoo5289
Contributor
Contributor

So just set it as a guest OS, disable the ability to vMotion and you're good, no other work needed. Sounds good. Thanks...

Boy they made that complicated though LOL

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